The Official Scratch Jr Book

Chapter 3

6. Tap the Drag tool, and then drag the circle where you want it.

Drag
Tool

If you tap on the drawing
instead of dragging it, little
circles will appear on the lines
that let you change the shape.
We want our snowman to have
round snowballs, so be careful
not to drag one of these little
circles, or you might acciden­
tally change the round shape.
7. Make a third circle for the
snowman’s head and drag it
into place too.

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Stories

8. Now you need to make the eyes with two much smaller
circles. Using the Circle tool, draw a small circle, or just tap
the screen to create a round dot. You can make sure your eye
circles are the same size by using the Duplicate tool, which
makes a copy of the shape you choose. Tap the Duplicate tool
(which looks like a stamp), and then tap the eye circle that you
want to copy.

Duplicate
Tool

Copied
circle

The Duplicate tool makes a copy of the shape that appears
just to the side of the original, so you need to drag them apart
carefully. Drag these eyes into place on the snowman’s head.

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Chapter 3

9. Tap the Line tool and draw two arms for the snowman. Next,
we need to fill in the snowballs with white paint. Tap the Fill
tool (which looks like a paint bucket) and select white from the
color palette. Then tap each snowball, and the shape will fill
with the color that you chose. Select black and color the eyes.

Line
Tool

Selected Fill
color Tool

10. To make a carrot for the nose, change the color to orange
and tap the Triangle tool. Drag your finger diagonally any­
where on the canvas until you have a carrot-shaped triangle.
Then, u­ sing the Fill tool, paint the carrot orange.

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Stories

Triangle Carrot
Tool Rotate
Tool

Selected
color

11. The Rotate tool turns items around, and you can use it to
arrange the carrot like a nose. To do so, tap the Rotate tool,
and then press and hold the carrot. Keep your finger on the
screen and move it up or down or side to side to turn the
carrot. Use the Drag tool to drag the carrot into place on
the snowman’s face.

Ta-da! You’ve created your own unique character! Don’t for­
get that you can give your snowman a name with the text bar at
the top. You can also add more features to your snowman, such
as a hat, a smile, or some buttons. Tap the check mark at the
top right when you are satisfied with your snowman, and it will
appear in your arctic scene.

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Chapter 3

Now you can give your snowman and the cat a script to tell
your winter story!

Hints

If you tap a character before tapping the Paintbrush button, the
paint editor will open with that character on the canvas instead
of with a blank canvas. This allows you to edit existing charac­
ters with the paint editor. Your modified character is saved as
a new character—it won’t replace the original character. So go
ahead and make a blue cat or a pig with polka dots! Any new or
modified characters that you make will be saved in your charac­
ter menu so you can use them in all of your projects.

If you make a mistake with your character, you can use
the Undo button at the top. If you want to delete something in
particular, you can use the Cut tool (which looks like a pair of
scissors).

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Stories

Cut
Tool

Just tap the Cut tool, and then tap what you want to delete.
Make sure you tap a different button afterward to continue
painting, or you’ll end up cutting everything out!

Looking for a Challenge?

See if you can figure out how to edit the arctic background.
Write a script to show the cat building a snowman by making

a new page for each step of the snowman building. So on page 1
have the cat build the bottom snowball, on page 2 have the cat
add the middle snowball, and on page 3 have the cat put on the
snowman’s head and arms.

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Making Connections

Literacy Connection: Asking Questions

As you are using the paint editor, you may need extra help
finding the tool that you want. Don’t be afraid to ask your
­classmates or an adult!

Math Connection: Counting the Circles

Count the circles as you add them to the snowman to make sure
that the three circles of the body plus the two circles of the eyes
make five circles.

Tips for Grown-ups

When filling in the circles of the snowman with white paint, chil­
dren might find it difficult to tell the difference between a filled
circle and an unfilled one. Try selecting a more visible color just
to show them how the Fill tool works. Then go back to white and
fill the circles for the snowman.

Appendix B has a quick reference guide for all the tools in
the paint editor.

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Stories

Project Time! The Tortoise and the Hare

Now you can use all of the skills you’ve just learned to make
a full story! This story is about a race between a patient tor­
toise and a boastful hare. To create the scene, you first have
to make a tortoise with the paint editor. Then, you can use the
Set Speed block to make the hare move faster than the tortoise
and to help the tortoise win! You will also use what you learned
about making characters talk to each other and about turning
story pages.

How to Make It

1. Choose the farm background, delete the cat, and add the ­rabbit
character.

2. We don’t have a tortoise character already made, so we’ll use
the paint editor to make one. Make sure you paint the tortoise
quite big! It will look smaller when it appears in the scene
than it does in the paint editor.

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Chapter 3

3. The race will go over the farm, past a river,
and through an orchard. For this we need
to make two new pages. Add the river back­
ground to the second page and then add the
spring background to the third page.

4. Let’s add the tortoise and the hare to the
two new pages too. Drag the rabbit char­
acter from page 1 to page 2 to copy it over,
and then drag the tortoise from page 1 to
page 2. Don’t forget to copy the characters
to page 3 too.

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Stories

5. You can use the Add Text button to add words of different
sizes and colors to your page. Larger words look more like a
title, and smaller words might be the main part of your story
that you can read aloud. Select page 1 and tap the Add Text
button to give your story a title.

6. Now comes the action. On page 1, the tortoise and the hare
talk about the race they want to have.

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Chapter 3

7. We’ll start you off with the script to begin the race. Then, can
you write the scripts to show what happens next in your story?

“On your mark, get set, GO!”

Here are some tricks you may need:
• You don’t want your hare to look like it’s waiting if it gets

to the end of the page first! You can use the Set Speed
block (set to Fast) and the Hide block to make the hare
run to the end of the page and disappear. Use this trick
to keep characters off the page when you don’t need them!
Make sure to reset the speed of your character if you want
it to slow down once it reappears.
• You can record sounds to add excitement to your story!
• Fables like “The Tortoise and the Hare” usually have a
moral at the end—a sentence explaining what the charac­
ters learned. You can use the Add Text button to display a
moral at the end of your story. Use the Change Size but­
ton to adjust the size of the words to fit your page.

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Stories

Hints

Remember, the Set Speed block does not slow down or speed up
the timing of Wait blocks.

When you have more than one character, you need to add
the Go to Page block to the script of only one of the characters to
turn the page. But be careful about which script ends with the
Go to Page block. Some scripts will finish sooner than others,
and the page may turn before all the characters have finished
their scripts. You want to add the Go to Page block to the script
that takes the longest to finish.

Looking for a Challenge?

Try recording yourself telling the story by using multiple Play
Recorded Sound blocks. Can you time the recorded sounds
with the actions on the screen?

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Making Connections

Literacy Connection: Creating a Digital Book

When programming this story, you’ll use a combination of draw­
ing, writing, and speaking to create an animated tale about the
tortoise and the hare! Practice writing and spelling by using the
Say block to make speech bubbles for the characters and the Add
Text button to add titles. When your story is finished, read your
digital storybook to a friend! Practice speaking clearly and loudly
to describe what is happening as your scripts are running.

Math Connection: Making Characters Move

Use numbers, counting, and guesswork to control the way the
characters move with the blue motion blocks. You will need
to experiment with different numbers in the motion blocks to
make your characters move the way you want. Can you make
the same action happen using fewer blocks just by changing the
numbers? If you want your characters to move to exact spots on
the stage, try tapping the Grid button (at the top of the screen),
and use the numbers on the grid as your guide!

Tips for Grown-ups

It will likely take children many tries to create a complete nar­
rative with multiple pages and dialogue. Allow them to focus
on one aspect of the story at a time, and encourage testing and
retesting of scripts along the way. This lets them quickly find
and repair bugs, or things that happen differently than expected,
in their scripts.

It is frustrating for anyone to lose unsaved work! Remember
to save your work often by tapping the Home button at the top
of the screen. When you see the project in your project library, it
is saved. Tap the project’s image again to reopen it and continue
working.

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Chapter 4
Games

You’ve already made some animations
and stories. But in this chapter you’ll
learn how to make games! You’ll make
four different small games, and then
you’ll use everything you’ve learned to
make one big game at the end.

Chapter 4

Activity 12: Pick a Peach!

The goal of this game is to find out which of the peaches on the
tree is ripe! Tap a peach, and if it’s ready, it’ll fall to the ground.

To create this game, we’ll need to give scripts to a peach on
the tree.

What You’ll Learn

Until now, you could start all of your scripts by tapping the
Green Flag button. In this activity, you will learn how to start
a script by tapping a character, using the Start on Tap block.
You will also see how to use the Shrink block, the Go Home
block, and the Reset Characters button.

Start 2 Go Home Reset
On Tap Characters
Shrink

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Games

How to Make It

1. Select the summer background and delete the cat character.
You can see that the tree on the left already has some peaches
on it, but these are just part of the background and they can-
not move. To get a peach that will move when we tap it, we
need to add it to our scene as a character.

2. To do this, tap the plus sign in the character area and select
the peach. Drag the peach onto the tree that already has three
peaches on it.

3. We want to make the peach close to the same size as the other
peaches on the tree, so tap the purple looks blocks category.
Drag the Shrink block to your peach’s programming area and
tap it twice. The first tap will make the peach smaller, and the
second tap will make it even smaller.

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Chapter 4

4. Now the peach is the right size, so you can drag the Shrink
block back to the blocks palette to delete it.

5. Tap the yellow triggering blocks category to show the family of
starting blocks. This time, instead of using the Start on Green
Flag block, we’re going to use the Start on Tap block, which
brings characters to life when you tap them.

12

6. Drag the Start on Tap block to the programming area to
start the peach’s script. Add some blue motion blocks to this
triggering block to make the peach wiggle and fall from
the tree.

7. Try it out! Tap the peach and see what happens.
We need to do one more thing to make this game easier to

play over and over. If you tap the peach again after it has fallen
to the ground, the peach will start its script again but from the
ground, not from the tree. The Start on Tap block does not
return characters to their original positions like the Start on
Green Flag block does.

You can return the peach to the tree by tapping the Reset
Characters button at the top of the screen.

The Reset Characters button will return all characters to
their home positions.

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Games

If you have other characters moving around on the stage and
you want only the peach to return home, then you might prefer
to reset just the peach.
8. Tap the blue motion blocks category to find the Go Home block.

12

9. Drag the Go Home block to the end of the peach’s script.

Now the peach will hop back up onto the tree after it has
fallen, and you can play the game again!

Hints

You might want the script to pause for a couple of seconds before
it reaches the Go Home block so that the peach doesn’t jump
straight back up onto the tree as soon as it falls. Use the Wait
block to make the peach stay on the ground for a moment.

Looking for a Challenge?

To make the game more interesting, you could add more peaches
to the tree. Can you make it so that some of the fruit is not ripe
enough to fall yet? If the fruit is not ripe, maybe it just wiggles
on the tree and stays put.

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Making Connections

Literacy Connection: Adding to the Story

Add another character to this scene and create the first page of a
story! How do the characters react to the falling fruit? Are they
surprised? Hungry? Use speech bubbles, sound recordings, and
the Add Text button to incorporate speaking and words into
your story. You can look back at Chapters 2 and 3 if you need
help remembering how to do this. Swap projects with a friend
and complete each other’s stories by adding a new page!

Math Connection:
Composing and Comparing Shapes

Now that you have made a falling peach, try creating different
types of fruits. What shapes do you use? Which fruits are the
biggest? Use descriptive words to compare and contrast the vari-
ous shapes and sizes you used.

Tips for Grown-ups

It is sometimes difficult for young children to tap a character
lightly and evenly enough for ScratchJr to interpret the motion
as a tap and not a drag. If ScratchJr thinks the motion is a drag,
it will move the peach slightly instead of running the script. If
the peach does not wiggle and fall from the tree when the child
taps it, that’s the likely cause.

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Games

Activity 13: Blast Off!

In this activity, the cat counts down, and then a rocket ship
blasts off!

What You’ll Learn Send Start on
Message Message
You’ll learn how to get the characters to
work together, using the Send Message
and Start on Message blocks. The cat
will count down the seconds, and then
the rocket will blast off!

How to Make It

1. Start by adding the moon background and the rocket
character.

2. Let’s write the script for the cat first. Tap the cat to
return to it. Drag a Start on Green Flag block to the
programming area.

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Chapter 4

3. Tap the purple looks blocks category and add three Say blocks
to make the cat count “3, 2, 1.”

4. Tap the yellow triggering blocks category to find the Send
Message block.

12

5. Drag the Send Message block down to the programming area
and snap it onto the end of the cat’s script.

This will tell the rocket when to start. When the cat has
finished counting, it will send a message for the rocket to
receive.
6. Now, let’s tap the rocket and give it a script. We want to make
the rocket ship blast off when it receives the message from the
cat. Start the script with the Start on Message block. This
script will run when another script sends a message.

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Games

7. After the Start on Message block, add a Move Up block to
make the rocket move up the screen as if it is taking off, and
then add a Hide block to make the rocket disappear.

8. Now, tap the Green Flag button to try out the script.

Hints

This script uses an orange message. You can choose from six dif-
ferent message colors to communicate between characters in your
project. Just keep in mind that your Send Message block has to
match the color of your Start on Message block. For example, an
orange Send Message block will trigger a script that begins with
an orange Start on Message block, but if you have used a purple
Send Message block in your project instead, the script that begins
with an orange Start on Message block will never run!

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Chapter 4

Looking for a Challenge?

Add some more characters and start each of their scripts with a
Start on Message block. You could have a crowd of characters
cheer together when the rocket blasts off by giving them all the
same color Start on Message block.

Maybe you could have a shooting star fly across the sky as
the rocket is rising. Would it start with the same color message
as the crowd?

Remember that all scripts that begin with a Start on
Message block of the same color will start at the same time
when a Send Message block of that color is used.

106

Making Connections

Literacy Connection:
Getting Ready for Takeoff

Before the countdown begins, program the cat to make an
announcement about what is going to happen. Use the Say
block and the Add Text button to prepare for the rocket’s take-
off. Where is the rocket going? When will it take off?

Add another page after the blastoff to show where the rocket
travels!

Math Connection: Counting Backward

Practice counting backward! Your cat is counting down the
amount of time until the rocket ship will take off into space.
When your cat reaches “1,” the rocket ship will blast off. After
programming the cat to count down from 3, try making it count
down from 10, 15, and even 20!

Tips for Grown-ups

You can explain the Send Message block as an announcement
that one character makes to all of the other characters. Only the
characters with a Start on Message block of the same color as
the announcement will listen for the announcement and react
to it. The rest of the characters will ignore it.

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Chapter 4

Activity 14: Play Tag!

Program the cat and the dog to play tag. In this game, the dog’s
script will start when it is tagged by the cat. Then the dog will
tag the cat, and they’ll continue to play tag until you stop the
program.

What You’ll Learn

In this activity you’ll learn how to use another new starting
block: the Start on Bump block.

Start on
Bump

The Start on Bump block starts a character’s script when the
character bumps into another character.

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Games

How to Make It

1. Select the farm background and add the dog. Position the cat
and the dog on the stage so that they are standing about five
steps apart. You can move them later on if those positions
aren’t quite right when you try out your script.

The cat will move toward the dog and say “Tag!” Then it
will move back and pause for 2 seconds to wait for the dog to
tag it. We’ll add a Repeat Forever block to the cat’s script
so the cat and the dog will play again and again.
2. Create the following script for the cat:

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Chapter 4

3. The dog’s script uses the Start on Bump block so that it
starts when the dog is bumped by the cat.

12

After the dog is bumped, it will wait 2 seconds to give the
cat a chance to run away. Then the dog will move to the cat,
say “Tag!” and run away.
4. Create the following script for the dog:

We don’t need the Repeat Forever block for the dog,
because the Start on Bump block will run every time the
dog is tagged.
5. Tap the Green Flag button to watch your characters play tag!
Press the Stop button when you want the game to end.

Hints

If a character is touching another character that has a Start on
Bump script, the script will keep running until the characters
are not touching anymore. For example, if you move the cat so
close to the dog that they are touching, the dog’s Start on Bump
script will begin running, and it will continue to run over and
over again until you move the cat away from the dog.

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Games

Looking for a Challenge?

See if you can make a game of dodgeball. Add a ball to your proj-
ect and make it move all around the stage with a few different
Start on Green Flag scripts that repeat forever. (See “Look-
ing for a Challenge?” on page 56 to see how to use two scripts
together in the same programming area.) Change the scripts of
the cat and the dog so that when they are hit by the ball, they
say “I’m out!” and then disappear. Add more characters to make
the game more exciting!

Remember that you can get your characters to talk and per-
form actions at the same time by using two scripts in the same
programming area. Decide which scripts should start with a
Start on Bump block and which ones should start with a Start
on Green Flag block.

111

Making Connections

Literacy Connection:
Creating a Conversation Between Friends

Use the Say block to get your cat and dog to talk to each other
while they play. Use phrases like “I’m going to tag you!” and
“You’re it!” in the conversation, using capital letters and punc-
tuation marks when needed. How does the game of tag end?
Does someone give up? Remember to use the Start on Bump
and Wait blocks to help time the conversation so it makes sense
with the way the characters are moving.

Math Connection: Estimating

To program the perfect game of tag, you will need to estimate
what numbers to use on the Wait blocks and how many blue
motion blocks you need. Try different numbers and test them
out to see what works best with your program!

Tips for Grown-ups

This activity repeats using a combination of the Repeat For-
ever block and the Start on Bump block. While it might seem
like a good idea to give the cat a script that has a Start on Bump
block just like the dog, this approach won’t work!

If both characters have a Start on Bump block, they’ll both be
triggered at the same time. It doesn’t matter which one is mov-
ing or which one is stationary when they “bump” into each other.
The block will be triggered, and they won’t bump again.

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Games

Activity 15: Guess the Odd One Out!

Create a two-player guessing game to play with your friends and
family. In this game, all of the animals are moving in a pattern,
but one of them is moving slightly differently than the others.
Each player takes turns guessing which animal is the odd one
out. If the player chooses the wrong one, the animal will say,
“Not I!” If the player guesses right, the animal will say, “You
got it!” The first player to tap the correct animal wins.

What You’ll Learn

You’ll learn three new things in this activity: how to use the
Stop block, how to run a project in Presentation Mode, and how
to use different triggering blocks to start different actions for
the same character.

Enter Exit
Stop Presentation Presentation
Mode Mode

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Chapter 4

How to Make It

1. Pick a background. Your animals will need lots of space, so the
farm background would be one good choice.

2. Add four animals to join the cat on the stage. You’ll program
four of the five animals to move in the same way and one of
them to move differently.

3. Make a script for one animal to have it move around in a
square. Add another script that makes it say “Not I!” when
it is tapped.

4. Make the same scripts for three other animals so that four of
the animals have the exact same scripts.
Note that instead of making a new script for each of the
animals, you can copy a script from one animal to another by
simply dragging the script from the programming area to the
animal in the list of characters.

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Games

5. Change the time on each script’s Wait block so that the
animals will start moving at different times.

6. Add a script for the odd-one-out animal with an extra Move
Down block to make the animal move slightly differently than
the others. Then give it another script so that it stops and says
“You’re right!” when it is tapped. To make the animal stop
moving when it’s tapped, tap the orange control blocks cat-
egory and drag a Stop block to the end of the animal’s script.

7. When you’re finished programming the animals, tap the
Enter Presentation Mode button to hide the programming
area so that no one accidentally sees the answer in the script.

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Chapter 4 Green
Flag
The stage will fill the entire screen.

Exit
Presentation

Mode

8. Now you have a game! Tap the Green Flag button to get it
started, and see who can find the odd one out first.

9. Tap the Exit Presentation Mode button to return to the
regular ScratchJr screen.

Looking for a Challenge?

When the winning animal is tapped, it stops moving. See if you
can make all of the other animals also stop moving when the
game is won. You will have to use a Send Message block and
give each of the other animals a Start on Message script that
stops its motion.

116

Making Connections

Literacy Connection:
Writing the Game Directions

How does the player know the rules of the game? Write step-
by-step instructions for the player using Say blocks or the Add
Text button. Can you give the players hints if they can’t find the
correct animal?

Math Connection:
Writing Your Own Math Problems

The game you’ve created has a lot of different motion blocks and
Wait blocks. Can you come up with a math problem worksheet
for this game? You could write problems like “How many move-
ments does the pig make?” or “Who is waiting the longest?”

Switch worksheets with a friend and answer each other’s
math problems! Don’t forget to make an answer sheet and mark
each other’s answers.

Tips for Grown-ups

The Stop block will stop the scripts for only the character that
has the Stop block, not for any of the other characters. Once a
script is stopped, you can restart it with the appropriate trigger
(tapping the Green Flag, tapping the character, sending a mes-
sage, and so on).

117

Chapter 4

Project Time! Cats Versus Birds

Okay, you’ve learned a lot, so now let’s make a really cool game.
We’ll make a one-player game where the bird must fly past three
moving cats and touch the mushroom to win.

When the player taps the bird, it flies toward the mushroom,
but if the bird touches any of the cats on the way, it has to go
back to its starting position. If the bird reaches the mushroom
safely, the player wins!

Avoid
these cats!

The player Reach the
controls mushroom
this bird.
to win.

How to Make It

1. Choose a background for your game. The savannah is a good
option because it has lots of sky for the bird to fly in.

2. Add a mushroom to your project and drag it to the right side
of the stage. Then add a bird and drag it to the left side of the
stage.

3. Now add two more cats and line them up in the middle of the
stage so that they are not touching any of the other characters.

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Games

4. Program the cats to move upward at different speeds by
changing the speed in the Set Speed block so it is differ-
ent for each cat. You need to make another script to send
an orange message when a cat is bumped by the bird so that
the bird will know it has to go back to the start. Here is an
example of our script for one cat:

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Chapter 4

5. Program the bird to move forward when it is tapped. Then
add a script to make it go back to its home position when an
orange message is sent because it bumped into a cat:

6. Program the mushroom to say “You win!” when it is bumped
by the bird:

7. To play the game, tap the Enter Presentation Mode button.

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Games

You’ve just made a game that uses all the skills you learned
in this chapter! When you play, your aim is to time the move-
ment of the bird just right so that it dodges the moving cats and
reaches the mushroom. Good luck!

Hints

Make sure that the cats don’t touch one another or the mush-
room when they move around the screen. Bumps between any
characters will send the bird back to the start, since the Start on
Bump scripts are triggered by any bump, not just bumps from
the bird.

Looking for a Challenge?

Change the starting positions and speeds of the cats to make
the game harder. What other strategies can you use to make this
game easier or more difficult?

121

Making Connections

Literacy Connection:
Turning Your Game into a Story

Turn your game into a story! Make an introductory page explain-
ing why the bird wants to reach the mushroom. Is there some-
thing special about this mushroom?

The second page can be the game, and the third page can
be the ending to the story and a message to the player. For
example, you might write something like “Congratulations, you
reached the mushroom!”

Math Connection: Keeping a Tally

Get some friends to play this game with you. Keep a tally of the
number of wins and losses for each person, and add them up
once everyone has had the chance to play the same number of
times. Did each player get a different result, or did every player
have the same outcome?

Tips for Grown-ups

When trying to tap the bird, a child may sometimes drag the bird
instead. This will reset the home position of the bird to that new
location, which may be in the middle of the screen. Then, when
the bird bumps into a cat and returns to its home position, it will
no longer go back to the edge of the stage.

To avoid this problem, add another character to the project—
a star, for example—to act as a button; to make the bird move,
you only have to tap this star. Place the star in the bottom corner
of the stage where it will not touch any of the other characters.

122

The star should send a blue message when it is tapped,
like this:

Change the bird’s scripts so that it no longer moves forward
when tapped. Instead, it moves forward when it receives the
blue message from the star.

If the child drags the star while trying to tap it, that isn’t a
problem. The home position of the bird will stay the same, and
the game can carry on.

123



Afterword

Even though you’ve reached the end
of the book, you are only just getting
started with programming. The goal of
this book is to guide you in helping the
children in your life learn ­programming—

Afterword

and, in the process, learn to design projects, solve problems,
reason systematically, and express themselves creatively.

When your child has mastered all that ScratchJr has to offer,
it might be time to introduce Scratch and its active online commu-
nity. In Appendix A, you will find resources for this transition.

We have worked hard to bring coding to young children in a
developmentally appropriate way. It is our strong belief that pro-
gramming opens new ways of thinking and new forms of expres-
sion. We hope to continue making improvements to ScratchJr
and creating new resources and opportunities for learning and
sharing. We want ScratchJr to remain free so anyone, anywhere,
can use it. So far, we have been able to do so through generous
grants from the National Science F­ oundation and the Scratch
Foundation. If you believe in our vision and want to support us,
please consider making a donation to the Scratch Foundation
(http://www.scratchfoundation.org/). Any amount, large or small,
is appreciated.

Let’s keep coding!
Marina and Mitch

126

Appendix A
Transitioning
from ScratchJr

to Scratch

When you’re ready to take the next step
in your programming journey, we recom-
mend trying out Scratch, a programming
tool designed for slightly older learners
(ages 8 and up). Scratch offers additional
features that enable children to ­create

Appendix A

more advanced stories, games, and animations, but its basic
programming approach is similar to ScratchJr, so it will feel
familiar.

You will know that children are ready to move on to Scratch
when they can tell a story or make a game independently with
ScratchJr or when they are ready to start creating more advanced
projects.

For example, children can use Scratch to do the following:

• Create games that keep score
• Import images and sounds
• Make characters move at any angle (not just up, down,

left, and right)
• Program characters to change “costumes” within a

project
• Create stories that are longer and more complex (more

than four pages)

The Scratch Community

Perhaps the biggest difference between Scratch and ScratchJr is
that Scratch is integrated into an online community, so it is easy
for children to share their projects with one another, comment
on one another’s projects, and even remix one another’s projects
(that is, make variations of other people’s projects using some of
their characters and programming scripts).

This social dimension of Scratch is very appealing to many
children and opens up opportunities for them to collaborate
and learn from one another. But younger children might not
be ready to participate in an online community. Before a child
joins the Scratch community, you should make sure to have a

128

Transitioning from ScratchJr to Scratch

discussion about appropriate online behavior. Also make sure to
read the community guidelines on the Scratch website (https://
scratch.mit.edu/community_guidelines/).

Getting Started with Scratch

Scratch runs in any web browser (such as Internet Explorer,
Firefox, or Chrome) and on any type of laptop or desktop com-
puter. To get started with Scratch, go to the Scratch website at
http://scratch.mit.edu/. There you’ll be able to explore more than
10 million projects created by other members of the Scratch com-
munity, and start creating your own projects. Click Help in the
top navigation bar to see all the resources available to get you
started and answer your questions.

If you want guided help with creating your first project, click
the Step-by-Step Intro. You will see the project editor and a
Tips sidebar with a step-by-step tutorial on how to make a proj-
ect similar to the one that you made in Chapter 1 of this book.

129

Appendix A

If, instead, you want to get started on your own, you can
click Create to go to the project editor and start programming.
You can always view the Tips (on the right) to get help.

If you do not have a good Internet connection, or if you pre-
fer not to participate in the Scratch online community, you can
download an offline, stand-alone version of the Scratch program-
ming editor from the Help page on the website.

The ScratchEd Website

ScratchEd (http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/) is a separate
online community specifically for educators who use Scratch.
On the ScratchEd website, educators can share stories, exchange
resources, and get support. Click the Resources tab to find the
Scratch Curriculum Guide, a comprehensive guide with ideas,
strategies, and activities for an introductory creative computing
experience with Scratch.

130

Transitioning from ScratchJr to Scratch

The ScratchEd website and Scratch Curriculum Guide are
developed by the ScratchEd Team at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education.

131



Appendix B
Reference Guides

This appendix provides additional infor­
mation about the ScratchJr programming
blocks and the paint editor. The “Block
Reference” describes the ScratchJr blocks
in all six categories. The “Paint Editor
Reference” provides an explanation of all
the features of the ScratchJr paint editor.